"The Shameful One"

The Boy enters a contest

Once upon a time, in a place nestled up against the foothills of the majestic Rocky Mountains there was a boy who believed almost anything was possible. He witnessed impossible things happening all around him, almost all of the time. He would relay the stories of these events to his friends and family and they were often entertained. But the boy sensed that to others they were only stories. The boy, of course was only relaying the facts as they had been presented to him by the world. He began to jot these stories down. Time and time again. So frequently that people who knew the boy began referring to him as artistic. More and more wonder was unleashed upon him. And that wonder he recorded. Because the boy liked to record these wonders in color, and they were colorful, his friends and family began referring to him as a painter and a dreamer. Though to the boy these were not dreams. These records were as real as anything else in the world.

Like any story I suppose the wonders of impossible beauty, impossible happiness, and impossible joy, were descended upon by a different kind of impossibility.

Sublime rage. An inferno of impossible destruction. Tears and loss. His community was beset upon by forces of impossible destruction. Heat and flame, melting solid things. Explosion and smoke. He had friends who lost everything.

The boy was confused by these events. He had never seen this kind of pain and destruction. Then it happened again in an almost diabolical circumstance. As if to quench the heat of flame, a trickle became a rivulet became a rush, became a torrent. This torrent was impossible. So violent, of such force that it had never before been seen by a living sole in the community. The boys friends and family and his community were shaken to the core. And the boy too. He lost much.

Even so, other miracles began to evidence themselves. Unlikely heroes rose and protected. The community gathered in embrace. Souls were awakened from slumber. And events of even more dazzling beauty started to emerge. Poking tentatively through ash. Slowly springing back from the crushing power of the torrent.

This thing was as impossible as any thing that the boy had witnessed. Of course he could never have imagined such a thing. Some one must record this impossible circumstance. Lift it as a shield. Witness the rage and heat and torrent. And tell the story of the beauty, love, friendship and compassion it revealed.